The purpose of the U.S. Department of Education (ED) 2009-10 Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC) is to obtain data related to the nation's public school districts and elementary and secondary schools' obligation to provide equal educational opportunity. To fulfill this goal, the CRDC collects a variety of information, including student enrollment and educational programs and services data that are disaggregated by race/ethnicity, sex, limited English proficiency, and disability. This collection includes data from a representative sample of schools and districts, representing 85% of the students in our nation's schools. The CRDC is a longstanding and important aspect of the Department's Office for Civil Rights (OCR) overall strategy for administering and enforcing the civil rights statutes for which it is responsible. This information is also used by other ED offices as well as policymakers and researchers outside of ED.

2. Under what authority does the Department conduct the CRDC?

The CRDC is a mandatory data collection, authorized under the statutes and regulations implementing Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, and under the Department of Education Organization Act (20 U.S.C. § 3413).

3. When was the CRDC first conducted?

The CRDC has been conducted regularly since 1968, primarily as a biennial collection. The CRDC included the universe of all districts in 1976 and 2000.

4. How are school districts chosen for the CRDC?

Districts are selected to ensure that data are collected from a representative sample. Some are always in the sample, such as all districts in states with fewer than 25 public school districts, and districts subject to federal court orders that are monitored by the U.S. Department of Justice. The remaining districts are chosen using a rolling stratified sampling method that ensures that a representative group from each state is included in the data collection. For the 2009-10 CRDC all districts with more than 3,000 students, state-operated facilities for students who are deaf or blind, and state-operated long-term secure juvenile justice facilities were also included in the CRDC sample.

5. How many districts are included in the CRDC?

The sample for the 2009-10 Civil Rights Data Collection is approximately 7,000 school districts. All of the schools within these districts are included in the sample.

6. How are the data in the CRDC collected?

School districts have the option of providing their data through a web-based survey or by submitting an electronic file. Some state education agencies provide all the CRDC data for the school districts in their state.

7. When was the 2009-10 CRDC conducted?

The CRDC was conducted in two phases. The first phase, which collected “snapshot” data related to enrollment, began in March 2010 and concluded in October 2010. The second phase, which collected cumulative and end-of-year “results” data, began in October 2010 and concluded in April 2011. The enrollment and results data relate to the same school year (2009-10).

8. What data are currently available from the 2009-10 CRDC?

The data from both parts of the 2009-10 CRDC are currently available at http://ocrdata.ed.gov. These data include school-level and district-level data.

9. When will the state and national estimations from the 2009-10 CRDC be available?

We anticipate the state and national estimations will be released later in 2012.

10. What are the major changes to the 2009-10 CRDC?

All data collected are from the 2009-10 school year. (Previously the CRDC included data from two consecutive school years.)

New data items were added to the 2009-10 CRDC.

Where feasible, the CRDC used data that districts already provide to states, and that states then provide to the Department through EDFacts instead of collecting those items again on the CRDC.

Several other data items previously collected by the CRDC will no longer be collected by ED.

Districts that met all of the requirements of ED's 2007 Final Guidance on Collecting, Maintaining and Reporting Data on Race and Ethnicity had the option of reporting data using the seven race and ethnicity categories (Hispanic/Latino, White, Black/African-American, Asian, Native Hawaiian/Other Pacific Islander, American Indian/Alaska Native, and Two or More Races). All school districts also had the option to report data by the traditional five race and ethnicity categories (Hispanic, White, Black/African-American, Asian/Pacific Islander, and American Indian/Alaska Native).

11. What data items are collected by the 2009-10 CRDC?

The following is a list of the data that the 2009-10 CRDC collected. New items are in bold.Unless otherwise indicated, all student data are disaggregated by race/ethnicity, sex, disability, and LEP status.

PART 1

School level

School characteristics, such as grades offered, whether the school is a special education, magnet, alternative or charter school, number of single sex academic courses (by content area), and whether students are ability grouped for English/Math (not disaggregated);

12. Which data for the CRDC are being collected through other data collections in ED?

To reduce the burden on LEAs, the 2009-10 CRDC did not collect disaggregated school data on the number of students served under the IDEA by disability category or educational environment. Instead, the CRDC uses the data that LEAs submitted to the applicable state education agency for the purpose of reporting required data under the IDEA. Likewise, high school completer data was no longer collected by the CRDC because ED already collects that data from state education agencies through the EDFacts collection.

13. When does OCR plan to do the next CRDC?

The next CRDC will be for the 2011-12 school year and will be a universe of all public school districts, juvenile justice facilities, charter schools, alternative schools, and schools serving students with disabilities. Districts can access information about this collection at http://www.crdc2011.org.

There are only a few changes to the 2011-12 CRDC:

Data will be collected on preschool students receiving suspensions and expulsions.

The school expenditure district-specific inclusions and exclusions will no longer be collected, as all school districts will be required to follow the same set of directions regarding expenditures to include and exclude.

All districts must meet the requirements of ED's 2007 Final Guidance on Collecting, Maintaining and Reporting Data on Race and Ethnicity.